Below are just a few of the many things that were discovered by accident. I omitted the stories behind most of the discoveries.
The first telephone came about in 1875, also as a result of an accident. Alexander Graham Bell, with help from his assistant Watson, built a kind of electromechanical ear in the quest to create a "speaking telegraph." Watson had been trying to transmit telegraph signals, and when one of the metal reeds got stuck, he plucked it in an effort to break it free. Bell came rushing into the room to find out what Watson was doing, because he had heard a strong signal from the receiving reed in the other room, strong enough that he knew he could use this simple device to transmit speech.
A practical telephone was actually invented independently by two men working in the United States, Elisha Gray (1835-1910) and Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922). Incredibly, both men filed for a patent on their designs at the New York patent office on February 14, 1876, with Bell beating Gray by only two hours! Although Gray had built the first steel diaphragm / electromagnet receiver in 1874, he wasn’t able to master the design of a workable transmitter until after Bell had. Bell had worked tirelessly, experimenting with various types of mechanisms, while Gray had become discouraged.
America (1492) - Columbus
Anaphylaxis - allergens effect
on the body (1913) - Richet
Anesthesia
(1844) - Wells
Archimedes Principle (ca. 200 BC) where a law of physics was discovered
Aspartame (NutraSweet) 1965) - Schlatter
Bakelite (a synthetic plastic 1907) Baekeland
Blasting Gelatin - Dynamite (1873) – Nobel
Botox (1987) - Carruthers
Cellophane (1908) - Brandenberger
Chewing gum (1870) - Adams
Chocolate chip cookies (1930) - Wakefield
Cleavage in minerals (1781) - Rene Just Hauy
Coca-Cola (1886) Pemberton
Corn Flakes (1894) - Kellogg
Decaffeinated coffee (Sanka) - (1903) - Roselius
Dry cleaning (1849) - Baptiste
Electric Circuit -frog legs (1791) Galvani
Indigo Dye (1897) - Sapper
Insulin (1889) – Mering
Iodine (1811) Courtois
Ivory Soap (1879) - Proctor & Gamble
King Tut's tomb (1899) Carter
Lexan Glass (1953) – Fox
LSD (1938) – Hofmann
Matches (1827) - Walker
Mauve - the color, from a synthetic dye (1856) -
Perkin
Microwave Oven (1946) - Spencer
Nitrous Oxide for Anesthetics (1772) -
Priestley
Mirror Neurons (1991) - Rizzolatti
Moons of Jupiter (1609) - Galileo
Nylon (1935) – Carothers
Pacemaker - Implantable (1958) - Greatbatch
Pap Smear (1923) – Papanicolaous
Penicillin (1928) – Fleming
Photography (1835) - Daguerre
Play-Doh (1956) -
McVicker
Pluto (1930) – Tombaugh
Polypropylene plastic (1930's) - Hogan/Banks
Popsicle - (1905) Epperson
Post-it notes (1970) - Silver
Potato Chips (1853) - Crum
Pulsar (1967) – Bell
Quantum Dot Light Bulb (2005) - Bowers
Quinine (for malaria) -
A legend
from
western South America
Radioactivity (1896) - Becqueral
Raisins (1873) -
Kearney
Rayon (1870) – Pasteur
Saccharin (1879) - Fahlberd
Safety Glass (1903) – Benedictus
Safety Pin (1849)- Hunt
Saran Wrap (1933) - Wiley
Scanner (1970's) - Kurzweil
Scotchguard Fabric Protector (1952) Sherman
Silicon Based Gunpowder (2002) -
University of California
Silly Putty (1944) - Wright
Slinky (1943) - James
Smallpox Vaccine (1796) – Jenner
Soda Water (1767) – Priestley
Stainless Steel (1913) -
Brearley
Sucralose -
artificial sweetener (1976) - Phadnis & Hough
Superglue (1942) - Coover
Surgical Glove
(1889) - Halsted
Synthetic Dye (1856) – Perkins
Tea (2737 B.C.) Shen Nung
Teflon (1938) - Plunkett
Telephone (1875) - Bell
Vaccinations (1879) - Pasteur
Vaseline (1859) - Chesebrough
Velcro (1940's) – Mestral
Viagra (1996) - Osterlic
Vulcanization (1839) - Goodyear
Warfarin
(1933) - Link
X-Rays (1895) – Roentgen